1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a treatment apparatus for chemical modification of animal fibers of a continuous web form, and particularly relates to the treatment apparatus for improving the property to prevent felting shrinkage of the animal fibers and for improving the resistance to pilling.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Animal fibers have a characteristic hand-feeling as textile fibers employed for clothes, and they are excellent in absorption/desorption of moisture, in water retaining property, and in heat retaining property. They also have a particular nature of water repellency, have moderate tensile strength, moderate elastic property and moderate resistance against abrasion or against wear. In addition, they have biodegradability. However, the animal fibers have, in general, week property in the resistance to pilling thereof, and the pilling nature is not preferable as that of fibers employed for clothes. Therefore, surface modification, and improvement of such fibers, have been long studied and researched, mainly from the aspect of shrink-resistant treatment. As part of the studies and researches, the pilling-resistant treatment (or treatment for preventing the formation of the pilling) has also been sought. However, employing such a conventional treatment or process, the water repellency as an inherent nature of the animal fibers are spoiled more or less.
The conventional method for the surface modification of the animal fibers includes the step of softening or removing the scales which are epidermal structures of the animal fibers, using chlorinating agents or oxidizing agents, for the purpose of performing the shrink-resistant treatment. However, the use of the chlorinating agent may possibly cause a social environmental problem in the future from the view point of the effluent regulation of the Absorbable Organic Halides (AOX). In addition, the treatment, or process, employing the chlorinating agents or the oxidizing agents, leads to such disadvantages as spoil of the hand-feeling to the animal fibers and/or impairment of the water repellency thereof. Moreover, the treatment leads to the reduction of the tensile strength of the animal fibers and the reduction of resistance against abrasion thereof.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 50-126997 discloses a method for improving the dye-affinity and shrink-resistance of wool and for improving the pilling resistance of wool-synthetic blend products, without deteriorating the hand-feeling and tensile strength of the wool. In the disclosed method, the wool impregnated with an aqueous solution of an acid or an acid salt, is brought into contact with an ozone-containing gas. This method, however, has the following problems. That is, the system for performing the method must be a closed system (or a sealed system), because the method involves treatment in an ozone gas atmosphere. According to the method, the water-impregnated wool fibers react with the gaseous ozone. Therefore, the unevenness at which location the wool fibers are impregnated with water, and/or the unevenness at which location the wool fibers are exposed to the gaseous ozone, directly cause(s) the unevenness treatment, thus deteriorating uniformity of the treatment. Moreover, since the treatment or process is carried out in the closed system, the productivity is low. Also, because the environmental loads, such as leakage of ozone from a treating machine (or processing machine) and deterioration in work environment, are great, industrialization employing this method is difficult.
On the other hand, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 3-19961 discloses a shrink-resistant treatment method for processing animal fibers, employing ozone as an oxidizing agent. The publication describes that animal fibers in water is brought into contact with fine bubbles of ozone. However, the ozone gas bubbles formed or generated by the glass filter, are too large to be allowed to go into minute portions of a group of the fibers of the animal. Actually, the bubbles can process or treat only the surface portion of the group of the fibers thereof. This results in forming the unevenness treatment thereon, and it fails to provide sufficient shrink resistance to the fibers. As the amount of treatment of the animal fibers increases, more unevenness treatment are formed. In order to enable ozone gas bubbles to go into minute portions of a group of the animal fibers, the size of the gas bubbles must be smaller than the fineness (i.e. the diameter) of the animal fibers to be treated. In addition, the disclosed agitation at 30° C. for 30 minutes is insufficient.
To solve the above problem, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-164430 discloses an ozone treatment method. According to the method, in order to enable ozone gas bubbles to go into minute portions of a group of fibers, an aqueous treatment liquid containing gaseous ozone as superfine bubbles having a size of 10 microns or less is blown to the fibers. FIG. 1 shown in the same publication illustrates an apparatus in continuous system for modification of the animal fibers, employing the method. However, the apparatus illustrated on the aforementioned No. 2001-164430 is constructed in a batch system for ozone treatment of a fabric which is fixed to a fixing frame, and it is not constructed for ozone treatment of a continuous fiber structure. Moreover, this apparatus finds difficulty in treating fabric uniformly, or evenly, with the ozone gas in the direction of thickness of the fabric.